Abortion: this battle is not over yet, Premier

Shrill political forces are agitating for an abortion debate, raising worrying parallels with American Tea Party politics.

The Tea Party emerged as a shrill political force in the US only when it became politically expedient for some Republicans to pander to a hard-right minority rather than the mainstream.

After a 2010 redrawing of electoral boundaries, some states in the US became so skewed towards the Republicans that in 2012 the party easily won a majority in the House of Representatives despite receiving 1 million fewer votes than the Democrats.

Illustration: John Spooner.

Indeed, the Republican grip in some places is so strong that the biggest threat to Republicans is other Republicans. Hence the emergence of the Tea Party, with rival candidates battling to outbid one another to win over a small but hardcore base on the far right.

Old school Republicans lament the enormous cost. The party is seen as so out of step with the mainstream some have questioned whether it will be possible to win the presidential vote in the foreseeable future.

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What does this have to do with Victorian politics? Here, our political system is vastly different. The premier is elected not by the people, but by whichever side of Parliament controls the numbers in the lower house.

There are, however, some worrying parallels. This week, upper house Liberal MP Bernie Finn told a local paper that abortion should not be acceptable under any circumstances, including cases of rape. He also claimed abortion is being used by rapists and (particularly) paedophiles to destroy evidence of their crimes, adding that for many women to have an abortion after being raped is like ''being raped a second time''.

The abortion issue has been simmering on a low heat ever since the divisive debate in Parliament over the 2008 Abortion Law Reform Bill led to the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria. There is nothing new in the notion that the Coalition is a broad church when it comes to conscience issues. But senior figures in the Napthine government are becoming increasingly alarmed that a ''ginger group'' of MPs - including Finn - are successfully agitating to once again put the abortion issue back on the political agenda.

Balance-of-power MP Geoff Shaw is drafting a private member's bill to scrap a requirement for doctors who are conscientious objectors to abortion to provide a referral to another medical practitioner without an objection.

According to some, the bill is being used as a Trojan horse to whip up debate more broadly. Despite voting against the 2008 reform, Premier Denis Napthine is desperate to shut the debate down before it once again heats up. Late last year, he released a YouTube video stating that neither he nor his government had any intention of introducing legislation to reduce a woman's right to choose.

Mary Wooldridge (who was one of only a handful of Liberal MPs to vote in favour of the 2008 reform bill) was also said to have been questioned during her unsuccessful preselection bid for the blue ribbon seat of Kew over her pro-choice stance.

To claim Wooldridge lost the battle for Kew because of her pro-choice stance is wrong. But the fact it was even raised as working against her is interesting. In a further attempt to keep a lid on the issue, Napthine this week lashed out against Finn's ''over the top'' claims, telling the MP his comments were less than helpful.

''I said to him that I totally disagree with his comments, that they were wrong and over the top, and I suggested that what we need to concentrate on … growing jobs, building a better Victoria, investments in education, investments in improving our public transport services, investments in opportunities in this state,'' Napthine said.

There are perhaps two reasons for his strong response. First, the abortion debate represents another giant distraction, particularly with the government under pressure in key areas such as health, education and public transport. Napthine clearly has better things to be talking about. He made this crystal clear to Finn.

Second, claims such as Finn's are so out of step with the mainstream they could become damaging for the Coalition, particularly in a left-of-centre state such as Victoria.

A Newspoll conducted in December found that 85 per cent of people support the right of women to choose whether they have an abortion, including 77 per cent of Coalition voters and 78 per cent of religious voters.

If there is any pressure for change, it is coming from a vocal minority: only 7 per cent of people said they would be more likely to vote for the government if existing laws were changed, and almost half (48 per cent) said tightening laws would make them less likely to vote for the Coalition.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that revisiting the abortion debate is bad politics for the Coalition, even if it is good politics for upper house MPs who rely on a small but vocal conservative base.

Until Wednesday, the abortion debate was once again threatening to become an issue in Wooldridge's second attempt to find a seat. Wooldridge this week said she would nominate for the upper house electorate of Eastern Metropolitan, which overlaps with her soon-to-be abolished existing electorate of Doncaster.

Fortuitously for Napthine and Wooldridge, one of three existing Liberal MPs in the electorate, Jan Kronberg, a member of the so-called ginger group and an active anti-abortion campaigner, has announced she will be retiring at the election. The big hope is this will clear the way for Wooldridge and minimise the risk of another bloodbath.

You could almost hear the sigh of relief emanating from his Treasury Place office. Napthine may have finally found a home for Wooldridge, and he may feel he has slapped down Finn, but the abortion bogyman has not been put to rest yet, and won't be, as long the ginger group is agitating behind the scenes.

Josh Gordon is The Age's state political editor. After a brief period in the Sydney banking world and the federal bureaucracy, Josh spent six years working as The Age's economics correspondent at Parliament House in Canberra. After cutting himself adrift to travel the world, he was lured back to reporting early in 2007. Most recently he has worked as The Sunday Age's politcal editor, based in Canberra, and The Age's state economics correspondent in Melbourne.